


Hold My Hand (and never let it go)

by KannaOphelia



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Body Swap, But kissing too, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Desperate Hand Holding, Dining at the Ritz (Good Omens), First Kiss, Gentleness, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Aziraphale (Good Omens), Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Protective Hand Holding, Really all the hand holding, Really this is mostly hand-holding, Romantic Fluff, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), awkward hand holding, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29734140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/pseuds/KannaOphelia
Summary: Not much of their skin was touching, when he thought about it. The fabric of their sleeves, their trouser legs, holding them carefully apart, despite the strangeness of wearing each other's skin. But this point, this point of contact, was almost unbearably intimate, until Aziraphale could barely tell where he ended and Crowley began.One hour, forty minutes, and neither of them acknowledged the way sometimes one of their hands would tighten suddenly, and the other would squeeze in return. Once Crowley drew his thumb in soothing strokes across the back of Aziraphale's thumb, and neither of them mentioned it.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 52
Kudos: 197
Collections: Proximity Flash





	Hold My Hand (and never let it go)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [one_more_offbeat_anthem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_more_offbeat_anthem/gifts).



> Thank you for this prompt! Hand-holding is one of my favourite romantic things, and I hope I did it justice.
> 
> For the purpose of this fic, Douglas MacKinnon's idea that the body swap happened on the bench right before the bus arrived is correct, and Aziraphale's bookshop is at 19 Greek Street, where the popup Soho bookshop experience was.

The first time Crowley reached for Aziraphale's hand, not as a handshake to seal a deal or a formal greeting or magic, it was not Crowley's hand at all that Aziraphale felt enfolding his, but his own.

They had sat on the bench with the box between them, carefully marking the invisible distance between them, as if nothing had changed, not remarking on the sharing of the stolen bottle of wine and the odd intimacy of drinking from the same rim. Another first, they had always had their own glasses, goblets, stone cups, had never shared water from each other's cupped hands as they had seen soldiers and families do.

Even after the box went wherever Adam had sent it, they sat those important feet apart. Wary even if no one was watching, or if it was too late. And it wasn't, Aziraphale reflected, just caution. Something had changed, something to do with Crowley's broken voice when Aziraphale had failed him, something in that moment when they had both realised that the only threat that still had meaning to Crowley was the prospect of never seeing Aziraphale again. They weren't sure what to do with it yet. Crowley's voice was so gentle, no demonic harshness in it. None of the demanding and tempting. Everything was there, and Aziraphale just had to reach out.

It was so fragile. So many ways to get it wrong, to break it.

And then, sitting awkwardly in a body with too many bones and too little padding and those _trousers_ , for heaven's sake how did the dear boy walk, Crowley had reached for his hand as he found his seat. And not let go.

Forty miles from South Eastern Oxfordshire to North London. The bus did it in an hour and forty minutes, and of course Aziraphale's attention was spent on not upsetting anyone who might be alarmed that the bus kept heading north when it should have turned off for Oxford, but...

It was no use. He had imagined many times what it would feel like to hold Crowley's hand, to feel his knuckles, to sense if it was cool or warm. Casual, linked intimacy, like humans had. Now they sat thigh to thigh and palm to palm, fingers loosely entwined, and neither of them spoke about it, and the hand was wrong. So strange, feeling his own hand from the outside. Aziraphale took pride in his hands, soft and smelling faintly of roses from expensive hand cream--out of manufacture these days, for some decades, but shops had a habit of finding unexpected stores of it in their backroom when he asked, ever so nicely, for them to check--the nails clean and polished smooth, cuticles gently pressed back with an orange stick. Not manly hands in current thinking, but well-loved ones, that had stroked the wet heads of new-born babies, wielded curved needles to replace Coptic threading on books, dipped in fragrant water at meal tables. Strong soldier's hands by design, soft and gentle by choice and nurture.

He wondered what Crowley thought of them. They were very different from his own, with their long thumbs and dark hairs long and defined on the back of his hand. Not that he had looked, often, taking in the expressive gestures with which Crowley had learned to compensate for hidden eyes. You simply couldn't help noticing a thing or two across thousands of years.

Did it matter, now, if anyone noticed him looking? The harm had been done. _You and your boyfriend with the dark glasses._

Not much of their skin was touching, when he thought about it. The fabric of their sleeves, their trouser legs, holding them carefully apart, despite the strangeness of wearing each other's skin. But this point, this point of contact, was almost unbearably intimate, until Aziraphale could barely tell where he ended and Crowley began.

One hour, forty minutes, and neither of them acknowledged the way sometimes one of their hands would tighten suddenly, and the other would squeeze in return. Once Crowley drew his--Aziraphale's!--thumb in soothing strokes across the back of Aziraphale's hand, and neither of them mentioned it. The most momentous things, Aziraphale knew, could pass in quietness.

That night, when Crowley had retired to his ridiculous bed with his ridiculous glass bedroom doors, Aziraphale sat on the edge of one of his ridiculous dining chairs, and tried to lounge rather than perch. He fitted his fingers together, Crowley's fingers, palm to palm and fingers intertwined, and tried to fancy it was Crowley's real hand holding his, as he danced his thumb across the knuckles. Easier, when he closed his eyes. There was the deep palm, the protruding knuckles. A slight squeeze saying what he had often imagined in the way Crowley circled around him, was there to distract him from fear with petty quarrels, the shadow following at his heel no matter where he went, where he settled, where danger or inconvenience threatened. _I am here for you._

Stupid. Ridiculous. _We're on our side_... well, all that meant was that they now shared enemies.

He clasped his hands tightly together, and the long thumbs pressed into the back of them, firm and gentle all at once. Close. There.

* * *

After they clasped hands to change bodies again, Aziraphale had the ludicrous desire to hold on a moment longer, keep the moment of touch going. Keep Crowley in proximity.

As they stood he hoped, stupidly, that they would link hands, and even more stupidly put his hands tidily away behind his back where they could not be touched. Best to control inappropriate longing. Demons weren't known for intimacy, except of course incubi and succubi, and you couldn't call that intimacy really. Neither were angels. They were content in Her love and their selfless love for all her creatures. Touch was a human thing.

He couldn't reach out when Crowley's hands were shoved in his pockets. Really, he must have used a miracle to make them have enough give to insert his hands, given how tight his trousers were, clinging to those long legs.

He liked Crowley's legs, and his hands. He wondered what Crowley thought of his. After all, he had worn Aziraphale like a glove.

Aziraphale knew he was happy, that simplest and most human of emotions, as they had lunch. Crowley was sitting back in a way that seemed relaxed, not tense focus or carefully staged lounging (and did Crowley catalogue Aziraphale's own mannerisms like that, learning signs of mood? he supposed Crowley did, and that it meant nothing. A good tempter learned to read their targets.) They talked, and laughed, and Aziraphale let himself lean in without the excuse of inebriation, lean forward because he wanted to be close, no other reason. A couple of times he placed his hand on the table near Crowley while leaning forward to emphasise a point. Nothing came of it, and it was stupid to wish it would.

They were friends. Openly and gladly, like he had always longed for. Stupid to wish to be even closer. To feel on the tip of his tongue, _There's only we two who are like us, in all the world,_ and even more dangerously, _I want to be linked by our touching skin._ They had danced together so long with barely a touch, that it seemed insurmountable.

There was no real reason to part afterwards, and no real reason to stay together. There was an awkward moment in front of the hotel, where Aziraphale sought for reasons for the latter. He anxiously surveyed the street. He could hardly ask Crowley to Pret-A-Manger straight after an extended Ritz luncheon, or to Boots. But now... Aziraphale was Crowley's best friend, he reminded himself firmly. Possibly the only one. They wouldn't part here and never see each other again. He resisted the temptation to reach out and grab his hand, keep him close.

"Walk you back to your shop?" Crowley offered abruptly, staring across the street, glowering at some unfortunate man who gave him a startled look and picked up his pace.

"Yes, oh yes," said Aziraphale in a rush. Then, because that didn't seem quite adequate, "Thank you." It was only a fifteen-minute walk, but that quarter of an hour, less than a blink of his lifespan, seemed terribly important right now.

Side by side, Aziraphale's brisk pace matching Crowley's swaying stride somehow, not touching, until they were close to home. Aziraphale looked up at the Palace Theatre in front of them and said, "Do you remember _Ivanhoe_?" He had been quite miffed at the time at Crowley provoking quarrels and lawsuits between Sullivan, Gilbert and D'Oyly Carte. They had argued quite sharply over it, but on the night of the opening Crowley had slunk into the shop, scowling and ungracious, and taken Aziraphale to the theatre. An apology of kinds, and the carpet quarrel never mentioned. He hadn't been able to ask at the time why Crowley had chosen that particular strife to cause. Crowley liked causing disruption, of course, it was his job and nature, but there was an unspoken acknowledgement that he didn't impinge on Aziraphale's hobbies or spoil his pleasures. It had been impossible to ask--were you _jealous_? Did I spend too much time in the Arundel Club and Evans's Café with William Gilbert, discussing such fascinating subjects as literature and politics? Such a kind man, deep down, beneath his habitual scowl and temper, a man who pretended to be far worse than he was but had a heart of gold, just like--

Crowley's hand grabbed his, fast and hard, and yanked him out of his reverie and off the street.

"Look where you're going!" Crowley hissed. "There's no crossing lights!"

"My dear fellow, you make a _point_ of crossing when the lights are red when they are there." Aziraphale was ruffled, by the interruption and the hissing and the implication he was incapable of crossing the road. And most of all by Crowley's hand, gripping his tight enough to make it hurt, and it was uncomfortable and rude and oddly, spectacularly wonderful.

"That taxi nearly hit you! You never look, ever. I've yet to see you make a miracle to stop the traffic even once. You just assume they won't hit you."

"I'm not a fool that can't look after himself, Crowley. How many times have I been discorporated over the last six thousand years?"

"Once," Crowley said flatly, and Aziraphale felt like the air had been punched out of his lungs.

"Oh." Crowley's hand tightened even closer on his. "I suppose it might take a certain amount of persuasion to get a new body out of the Quartermaster now." Aziraphale tried to smile, to lighten the mood.

"Yeah." Crowley spat the agreement out of his mouth as if it tasted unpleasant. "So, just be more careful, all right?"

Aziraphale knew he should feel chastised, but Crowley only loosened his grip until it was less painful, didn't drop it, and they walked hand-in-hand for the final stretch of the walk. Crowley's hand was tight and slightly sweaty and Aziraphale clung back with all his might. They held their hands still, no swaying between them, as if it was a bond of some kind, deadly serious.

When they paused outside his shop, they stood there on the steps a moment, awkwardly facing each other, still holding hands, as if they had attempted a handshake to say goodbye and Aziraphale had held out the wrong hand. Their skin together was hot and slippery and his fingers wound tighter in a desperate effort not to lose this moment of being linked together, this proximity.

"One of us is going to have to open the door eventually," Crowley said at last, making no effort to do so.

"Quite right." Their hands were clamped together so tightly Aziraphale could feel his own blood thudding through his, or was it Crowley's? Propelled by demonic heart or angelic heart, did it matter? They were made of the same stuff.

"I should be off anyway. Things to do, mischief to make."

It was on Aziraphale's lips to ask what things and what mischief, seeing that they were out of work. And if Crowley had spent enough time with him, that was fair enough. They had millennia in front of them. Best friends. On their own side. No sense in rushing things. Wherever they were going.

Crowley's fingers were, if anything, tightening. If this was a human corporation that actually required blood flow rather than it being an optional extra, Aziraphale's hand would be in trouble soon. And they were standing in such close proximity...

"I don't want to let go of your hand," Aziraphale admitted. His voice was small but it roared in his ears.

"Oh, fuck. Keep it forever if you want, it's yours," said Crowley, and kissed him.

Aziraphale got his free arm around Crowley's waist somehow, and Crowley's arm was snaking under his own jacket to pull him even closer, but their other hands were down by their sides because apparently Crowley shared his ideas about not letting go. Crowley's kiss was hard and fierce and it made some quiet voice repressed inside Aziraphale _roar_ , made him part his lips and meet an eager sliding tongue with his own, throw his head back so Crowley could press down harder on his mouth, deeper, bear him back against the door and press him hard against it, a lean thigh between his own as if Crowley couldn't bear any difference between them, anything...

Crowley released him enough only to press kisses against his jaw, muttering endearments in English, in Norman French, in Latin, further back to what Aziraphale was sure was Enochian, and between it all _angel, angel,_ like a prayer.

"Crowley. Crowley, we are _outside_ my _shop_." The protest was perhaps a little unconvincing giving the sighs being torn from his throat.

"Yeah." Crowley slid a tongue against the skin behind Aziraphale's ear, and it made him shudder. "Kiss me again."

"Only perhaps we should be inside it."

Crowley laughed then, a laugh with triumph and joy in it, and the door opened somehow, and they were still hand in hand when Aziraphale stumbled backwards through it. Hand in hand as Crowley pulled him to the couch, pulled him onto his lap, answered all Aziraphale's questions with hungry lips and another searching hand, and even when their hands had to part they kept snatching at each other's hands again, clasping, pressing kisses.

When Crowley slept it was with his head pillowed on Aziraphale's shoulder. He had never been so glad that they had chosen a soft corporation for him, to make a resting place for this precious head. Crowley had been given so little softness in his existence. Aziraphale stroked Crowley's spine gently and slowly with one hand, and cradled Crowley's other hand in his own, against his chest, cupping and holding it.

"Hold my hand always, love," he whispered.

Crowley was possibly not as asleep as he had seemed, because he breathed _always_ in return.


End file.
